Paris, France – The Eiffel Tower was closed on Monday due to a strike by staff over the removal of female colleagues during a visit by a Hindu religious group, workers and management said. The visit came on the same day as a cultural boat procession on the Seine organised by the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) spiritual movement. Staff condemned “professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and made invisible because of their sex” during the visit. “Some were asked to leave their posts and withdraw to other areas. In some posts, they were replaced by men,” the staff statement said.
The operating company that runs the Paris landmark, SETE, acknowledged that the delegation had requested the visit be organised so as to limit “interactions with women” and said that “these conditions should not have been accepted.” SETE president Ariel Weil stated that the conditions “were not in line with SETE’s values, nor with the principles of equality between men and women.” French Equality Minister Aurore Berge reacted angrily, saying, “In France, we do not ask women to erase themselves. No dogma, no religion is above the laws of the Republic.” Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen also criticised the incident, saying France would “never accept that women’s presence be ‘limited’.”
Must Read: Pakistan Captain Fatima Sana Fined for Shafali Verma Send-Off in Women’s Asia Cup
BAPS denied the claim that they asked organisers to “limit their interaction with women,” stating, “To our knowledge, at no time was access to the Eiffel Tower denied to anyone. Nevertheless, we wish to offer our sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or inconvenienced by this situation.” The Tower, which receives nearly seven million visitors a year, was closed all day Monday but reopened Tuesday. Paris authorities have launched an investigation into the incident, which has sparked widespread condemnation and debate over secularism and women’s rights in France.
